First Marketing Hire? Why It Should Be a PMM
A Product Marketer helps you figure out what’s working, so your next hire can scale it.
DEAR STAGE 2: I’m hiring our first marketer and getting really mixed advice on the right profile. A few advisors said “just get a growth generalist who can figure it out.” But others have called out that a Product Marketing skillset is critical for our first hire. Who’s right? And what exactly does a great product marketer do? ~READY FOR MARKETING
DEAR READY FOR MARKETING: Founders are in a tough spot. With a small team and limited resources to put towards GTM, the first marketing hire is crucial. You have to weigh speed, cost, and the ever-growing number of “jack-of-all-trades” marketers entering the scene. If you’re building a company where the product needs to align tightly with customer pain, market positioning, and sales execution (and, yes, that’s most companies), a Product Marketer isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s your unlock to building a scalable, strategic organization.
Yael Burla, Director of Product Marketing at Vimeo, framed it this way:
“It’s never been easier to build products in seconds. But it’s also never been harder to target the right persona with the right message at the right time in the right channel.”
A great PMM bridges that gap.
What a PMM actually does
Too often, PMMs are brought in after PMF, tasked with scaling a product that has some traction. While that’s part of their value, it’s also a miss. A strong PMM helps you determine PMF in the first place. The right hire is a shortcut to setting the GTM strategy, identifying the right customer segment, and building the narrative that makes your product land.
“The job of a Product Marketer is to create a two-way street between the market and internal teams to influence product strategy, build a differentiated roadmap, and align cross-functional teams,” says Yael.
They’re not just launching features. They’re answering foundational questions:
Who are your target buyers and users?
What are their real pain points and willingness to pay?
How do they currently solve this problem?
How do you position against alternatives?
What channels do they use to learn about solutions?
What content should be created to engage our buyers? How do we tell our story in a compelling, differentiated way?
In other words: a PMM ensures you're not just shouting into the void. Without this skill set, you risk building features that don’t land. Or potentially even worse, launching to the wrong personas with the wrong message.
What the best PMMs do differently
They define what business success looks like for every product initiative. Not just “launch,” but impact: new business? Expansion? Retention?
They use tools like Gong, product usage data, and win/loss interviews to map ICPs and run targeting campaigns that are specific, relevant, and high-converting.
They think like scientists: formulating hypotheses, testing, and iterating quickly.
They speak the language of both the technical and GTM sides of the business in order to translate complex, technical concepts into compelling, differentiated market narrativesA great PMM ensures your company moves fast, and in the right direction.
And that’s why sequence matters: hiring a Product Marketer before a growth or demand gen hire sets your foundation up for success. The PMM helps shape the narrative, clarify your ICP, and refine how your product meets real customer needs. Once that message is resonating, then you bring in a growth marketer to pressure-test it, distribute it, and scale what’s working.
Without that foundation, you're just pouring budget into clicks and campaigns that may not land.
Check in next week for part 2 of our PMM convo with Yael.
Until next week!